The world’s largest fuel cell park

Updated: No, it’s not from Valley company Bloom Energy. FuelCell Energy (s FCEL) is showing off what it says is the largest fuel cell park in the world: an 11.2 MW project with Korean power producer Korean Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) POSCO Power in Daegu City, South Korea. It was built on one acre of land, and investor The Cobalt Sky owns the plant and sells the power back to KEPCO under a long-term power purchase agreement. Korean power company POSCO Power facillitated the deal and FuelCell Energy provided the fuel cells.

Fuel cells create power and heat through a chemical reaction, and it’s uncommon for utilities in the U.S. to invest in such large centralized fuel cell plants. However, FuelCell Energy has been selling fuel cell projects to utilities in countries like Korea.

Katie – the previous question is a very relevant one. Any natural gas generator could use biogas. Why would you consider this “renewable” or “cleantech” if a similar efficiency, combined cycle gas turbine is not? What about a customer-sited natural gas recip engine that provides combined heat and power (much higher efficiency than a electricity-only fuel cell), that could just as easily run on biogas as a fuel cell?

Also, for the record the steady “base load” attributes of nuclear or fuel cells are not an advantage, generation that is flexible (can ramp up and down quickly) is more valuable. A high percentage of baseload creates similar management issues to wind and solar because load is variable, and generation needs to follow it at all times.